Desperate Measures
by sevenchapters
Summary: Damon calls Stefan to help him turn Elena's humanity back on.


"What?" Stefan growls into the phone.

"I need your help." Damon mutters.

"And you thought it was a good idea to call me because…"

"It's Elena."

"Again, and you thought it was a good idea to call me because…"

"We need to get her to flip her switch, she can't just keep going around like this." He may love his girlfriend but he'd be the first to admit she was one step away from being Katherine.

"Stefan." Damon huffs when he doesn't get a response.

"Do it."

Stefan turns his attention to see Bonnie facing him "Bon-"

"Do. It." She repeats.

"Why?" He asks watching as she sits up catching the sheet before it falls, smiling when she rolls her eyes at him when he mock pouts.

"Because if she ever comes after me like that again, she won't make it. The Elena I knew has been gone way before this. The only difference between her with having humanity and not having humanity is she has a higher body count and doesn't have a filter. So do it."

"Ouch." Elena scoffs hearing Bonnie's response from her spot in the chair across from Damon.

"Okay," Damon says into the phone ignoring Elena "now that you two are done talking about it. How fast can I expect you to be here?" Frowning when the call ends.

"You should be happy that he even answered." Elena states, knowing how Stefan and Bonnie jump each other whenever they have the chance. She doesn't blame Bonnie, that was one of the things she missed about Stefan. Not that Damon wasn't good or anything, there were just some things that Stefan was better at.

…

"You sure about this?" Stefan asks after tossing his phone aside looking at Bonnie.

"I'm sure." she says nodding her head "But it's your choice." She offers him a small smile.

He sighs and gets out of the bed walking around the room searching for his clothes.

"Do you know where my-" He stops when his shirt hits him in the face.

"Thank you." He says ignoring her laugh when it slides down to his chest.

"You're not coming?" He asks noticing she hasn't made an effort to get up.

"I would" she says with a sigh "but I can't really walk." Ignoring the smirk on his face.

"I can wait." He says sitting down next to her.

She narrows her eyes "No." Remembering all of the other times she's attempted to get dressed in front of him.

"Stefan." She warns through a smile when he's on top of her.

Before she can say anything else he leans in and kisses her, pulling back when she starts to deepen it.

"Later." He winks sneaking another peck before her gets up to leave.

* * *

 **Fair warning don't take anything I say to heart.**

"Look who decided to grace us with his presence." Damon greets putting his phone back in his pocket after reading his text, watching his brother walk inside with a grin on his face.

"I'm sorry, was I supposed to drop everything and rush over here because you need _me_ to help you fix _your_ girlfriend?"

Damon rolls his eyes "Whatever, just help me get her to flip her switch and you can go back to fu-" he stops himself seeing the look in Stefan's eyes "so you can get back to your girlfriend." He corrects himself remembering how his brother reacted to him talking about Bonnie the last time.

"Hm." Stefan says with a smile "Learning from your mistakes, maybe I should've let you had Elena sooner." Smirking at the look Damon gives him.

"Or maybe I should've realized I was better off with Damon than a knockoff version of Klaus." Elena retorts.

Damon grins.

Stefan smiles at Elena "Now that's interesting." looking back to Damon "That sounded like something Katherine would say." watching the grin fade away from his brother's face "You sure you want her humanity back on?"

"You kill me, you have Bonnie to deal with." he states when Damon puts the stake against his chest "And I'm pretty much the only reason you're alive at this point. Bonnie, Caroline, Matt, Tyler, Jeremy, Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah…" he trails off "Wow, I guess it would be easier to just name the people who _would_ care whether you lived or not if it weren't for me."

Damon blinks, taken back by his words. He knew Stefan told him not to take anything personally but he knew that what he just said was true.

"So how are we doing this?" Elena asks watching Damon and Stefan, knowing Stefan was just trying to get a rise out of her, he would never talk to Damon like that.

Stefan looks at her, raising his eyebrows when he sees her strapped down in the same chair he was when she and Lexi were trying to get his humanity back.

"Are we going physical? Or are you going to continue trying to bait me by using Damon?"

Stefan smiles "Smart."

Elena smirks "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"I never said you were smart." watching the smirk be replaced by a straight line "I'm just acknowledging that, that would be a nice way to go about it. Using your love for Damon to get you to care again. But I'm not going to take that route considering that it will do nothing for me. So instead" he says walking around Damon to grab a chair dragging it towards Elena taking a seat "I'm going to do something for the both of us."

"And what would that be?" She questions, wondering where he's going with this.

"We're going to have a talk. One that is way overdue."

"So you want to talk about our old relationship?" she asks with a laugh "Do you really want to hear me talk about how I had feelings for your brother? How he was making his way into my heart while you were off being a menace to society with Klaus. You're partner in crime in the twenties? While you were fucking his sister? About how I kissed Damon on his deathbed when we were still together? About how we made out? How we kissed way more than we led on while I was still in a relationship with you and how you stayed with me knowing about it? How he told me that he loved me and then compelled me to forget about it?"

She frowns when she sees everything that she just said had no effect on him.

"About how we slept together after we broke up? And I'm not talking about a day or two later. I mean literally after we broke up." She adds.

"Careful Elena, that almost looked like you cared." Stefan tsks tilting his head when he sees a flash of disappointment in her eyes.

Damon frowns wondering why Stefan hadn't reacted to anything she just revealed to him, figuring he's thinking she's just making things up to hurt him.

"You see, the thing is. I don't care about the things you did while we were together. And me being over you isn't the only reason. It's me wondering how I was so blinded by my love for you to notice that there was a perfectly good woman that was just so much better. In every possible way. Her despising...and I mean _truly_ despising Damon is just a bonus. But" he pauses waiting until she meets his eyes "the fact alone that you can say things to my face, intentionally trying to hurt me and when that didn't work you basically tell me that our relationship didn't mean shit. That you never cared about me-"

"That's not true." She interrupts.

"That I was just a filler until you finally could admit that you wanted my brother."

"Stefan-"

"That all the times we were together...in more ways than one, it wasn't my face you were seeing it was Damon's."

"Stefan-"

"That weird-"

"Shut up!" She screams.

"That weird little love triangle that was all types of wrong...was just a repeat of history. Except you were worse than Katherine. At least Katherine knew who she wanted." he pauses "Wait, no I guess you two are equal. Katherine knew who she wanted but she just liked that one of us wasn't afraid of what she was and accepted it. But that same one wasn't the one that she wanted. You on the other hand knew who you wanted but you were just too afraid to admit it. Knowing how your friends didn't like the one that you wanted, so you stayed with the safer one of the two. You didn't stay with me because you loved me, you stayed because you thought people would think you were a bad sister, a bad friend, a bad person if you had just been hon-"

"Shut up!" she screams through tears "How could you say that? Just undermine our relationship like that? Compare me to Katherine?" She shrieks before she starts to sob.

Stefan nods "My work here is done." he says simply as he stands up from the chair, taking a breath he turns to face his brother seeing him scowling at him clearly wanting to hit him...maybe worse, considering the death grip on the stake in his hand. "I would say I'm sorry, but considering everything that was just revealed, I don't think you deserve one." he states "If you need me, don't call me...either of you."

"Well I guess you don't need me." Katherine says from the doorway after seeing Elena crying before looking at Damon, speeding off before anyone can say anything.


End file.
